Please Leave A Message After The Heckin’ Bork

When answering machines are still relatively new contraptions for home use in the mid-80s, my parents get one for our house. Our dog has been trained to bark on command via hand signals, so, for the novelty value, it’s decided at some point that the greeting message will be the dog barking a few times.

Normally, we don’t get a lot of calls — just family every so often. One day, we return to find the machine blinking that there are a number of messages waiting. The cassette is rewound and the first several messages are nothing but hangups. After a couple of these, there’s finally a stranger’s voice:

“Martha! MARTHA! COME QUICK! They’ve trained a dog to answer the phone!”